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August 12, 2013

MRO Swapping Motion-Sensing Units
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 13, 2013
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is switching from one motion-sensing device to a duplicate unit onboard. The veteran orbiter relies on this inertial measurement unit (IMU) for information about changes in orientation. This information is important for maintaining spacecraft attitude and for pointing the orbiter's large antenna and science-observation instruments. The spacecraft has two identical copies of this motion-sensing device, called IMU-1 and IMU-2. Either of them can be used with either of the spacecraft's redundant main computers. Each contains three gyroscopes and three accelerometers. ... read more

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